Italian Infantry Weapons

World War II Italian Military
#21

poor ignorant Italy at the time wasn’t a rich country that why they closed many factories but they did their best with guns like carcano, beretta 38/42 and others i can picture in my mind but i don’t remember, also if you don’t know the best canon of world war 2 was the Italian Canone 90/53, we began to have nice tanks with no help from no one such as the semovente 70/25 or the semovente 105 or the vast 149 and p40 with a coming p43
why germany and italy losed the war???
because of the money the English, Russians and specially the Americans have

and dude there are others designs Italy had but im not gonna spend my time

#22

Forget the ignorant and carry on.:wink:

Breda gas operated.

In the main site I ve found 2 interesting pictures of the breda gas operated 8mm MG in Bosnia, I cant remember the exact model/number but here is.

This machine gun was box feed by a side magazine. I will loook for more information about it.
Crap ? definately no, but I would like it more with an belt fed.

Edited to add, aparently this was the Model 37.

#23

Freshly uploaded videos of italian infantry weapons, the Breda 37 indeed is feed with 20 round clips, every used case is reinserted in the tray.
The Breda M1936, M1938 and the Fiat revelli M1935 used an special 8x59mm round with rebated rim, non interchangeable with the Regia aeronautica 7,7mm Breda ( ,303 british)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ3N7Fcms7Q

#24

Extensive information about ww1 and ww2 italian cartrigdes can be found here:

http://www.worldwar.it/sito/munizioni/italiane

#25

So the question becomes… Which had better weapons, the Italians or the Japanese? Cuase neither of them, overall, were top tier.

Deaf

#26

is a good question, the Italian heavy machineguns ( Fiat M1935 and Breda 36) were definately better than the clumsy 6,5 and 7,7 japanese models, but probably the squad automatic weapon, the Breda 30 was in fact worst then the Typ 11 clip feed and definately below the Tipo 96 light MGs.

In the rifle question they share the same trouble, the war surprize them in the process of changing the 6,5 caliber to a heavier one, the japanese used both, the italians discarded the 7,35mm and stayed with the 6,5.

#27

Semi-Automatic Rifle Armaguerra Mo.39

In the period prior to The Second World War most of the more populous countries had experimented with semi-automatic rifles, which would eventually supplant the manually operated ones in current use.

Mauser and Mannlicher both had designs out prior to World War One. The Mauser M1916 rifle having been in limited use during that conflict. Similarly, the Mondragon of the l893 and 1908 designs, made in Switzerland, had been used both by Mexico as well as Germany. Legend has it that Pancho Villa got his buckwheats with a number of Mondragons! The Danish Madsen Model 1903 light machinegun was actually the off spring of a design used for a semi-automatic rifle in service in that country in the late 1880’s. This design was actually the first successful semi-automatic rifle in military service, but that’s a story for another day.

The United States of course had already tested many designs, both foreign and domestic. At the time of the rifle we are going to talk about the Johnson and the Garand were the last surviving candidates, with all the earlier test models having fallen by the wayside.

In Italy the large Beretta firm had offered their gas operated Fucile Automatico M.931 and Model 1937 designs. The six shot clip loading of the m91 was standard on the m.1931 but was altered to a stripper clip loading system in the M.37. In addition this was also chambered for the 7.35mm cartridge as well as the old 6.5x 52mm load. Both of these design used a rotating bolt locking system. Another made by Scotti, the M.1931 was also being tested but was not considered for adoption.

The rifle that had the most success (apparently 10.000 were ordered) was the so-called ‘Armaguerra’. Also known as ‘Fucile Armaguerra Mo.39’. Actually made by the well known Revelli firm.

Shooting it was all positive, no stoppages or malfunctions at all, and very pleasant of course. It operated by short recoil with the barrel moving approximately ½" back to unlock. It locked by means of a dropping block just like a P.38.

http://mvsn.forumcommunity.net/?t=5562082

Beside that data, I cant found any production numbers and why wasnt adopted by the Army.

#28

It’s seems like usual for my country, mass production scheduled for 1943 and adoption scheduled for 1944 but the invasion ceased this activities.

#29

A couple of very good photos, italian soldier in 1944 showing magazine belts for the MAB 38 9mm submachinegun.

#30

The tank version of Breda m37, named Breda M38, use a more usable upperside magazine. Still i don’t understand what weapon designer of the time want to achieve using the odd feed strip felt mechanism. The image that you posted are from Breda m37, because they lack pistol grip of M38.

@Nickdfresh
Beretta produced Mab M1938/xx, that is one of the best smg of WWII era.
Not produced by Beretta is the smg FNAB 43, expansive but very effective weapon. The Italian airplanes suffers for poor penetration perfomance of Breda light machine gun.

In general italian infantry weapons are good, but Italy lacks resources needed to give modern weapons to all his soldiers: in Africa campaign isn’t so rare get WWI weapon and in small France campaign is common for soldier to have old weapons or not have some type of equipment at all. Anyway, machine gun and hand grenades wasn’t good: bad choices of weapon designer lead to bad weapons.

#31

Panzerknacker,

I like that vest they are wearing with the MAB 38 mag pouches! All this ‘tactical’ stuff you see today is not a new idea. Funny that!

And say, are those grenade pouches below that seem to be stuffed with what? Food? Bandages?

Deaf

#32

Those were the leather cases for the 6 round clips to reload the Carcaro 6,5mm rifle, evidently the soldier of that picture is using them for other purposes and might be as a first aid container.

#33

Italian Rifles for sale… Only dropped once!

#34

Italian Rifle for sale… Only dropped once!

Ha, Ha, Ha you are funny and nice like an ingrowing nail… And what can you tell us about the “famous” Irish Rifles? :evil:

#35

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Rifles

Now known as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Regiment_(1992)

Also their official site http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/regiments/3409.aspx

#36

Hi Iron,
the only reason why i wanted to implicate the “famous” Irish Rifles ( NB - i wrote Irish Rifles, not Irish Soldiers…) it was just because that kind of humor, really pisses me off… I think that it’s unanimously well-known that the Italian was the Army worst armed, fitted out in an almost absurd way and sent to certain defeat in places like northern Africa or Russia, against numerically superior forces and with better weapons, equipments, means of transportation, etc. If you want you can criticize the Duce, the Government, the King or whoever you want… And i’ll probably be with you… But live alone the soldiers… My humble opinion is that the soldiers, every soldiers, it doesn’t matter from wich side, right or wrong, good or evil, deserve honour and respect, expecially the fallen… They paid the highest price. In the area where i live the most part of the soldiers were enlisted in the Alpini Corp and sent to Russia. Well, the most part of the family that i know, lost someone during the retreat from Eastern Front, from the Don river area. About the most part of them, the family didn’t never know where and when their sons died. During a fight or lost and frozen in the snow o died for starvation… I can’t stand who make some poor-quality irony on this matter. Dear Fiendish Red Baron, if you have guts, go to those families an tell then that they " dropped their rifles…" Good luck!
I’m sorry for this vent… I hope it’ll be useful to understand my point of view. It isn’t my intention to offend anyone… Best regards Iron Yeoman.

#37

I just popped it up there for info. The Italians got a raw deal and like you say any poor bugger that was on the Eastern front deserves a fair amount of respect. My regiment (not the Royal Irish btw) preferred fighting the Italians in Africa, because like you say they were badly equipped and their armour was pretty awful. An awful lot of brave Italians died because of the pride of Il Duce. I would also like to add that whilst many doubted the fighting prowess of the Italian soldier in WW2 that was firmly but to bed in Iraq when the Italians really got stuck in especially the Bersaglieri and the Carabinieri who sadly lost 12 men in 2003.

Best regards to yourself Skorzeny57.

#38

At some point, I’ll look up instances in North Africa Rick Atkins wrote about in An Army at Dawn where he recounts vicious mountain fighting between Italians and Americans in the mountains of Tunisia where both sides were often reduced to throwing rocks at each other and some Italians refused to surrender as they fought from caves. Reading it, I got the notion is was something one would more associate with the Imperial Japanese Army in the Pacific Theater…

#39

As a mod, I wish people would refrain from making such cliche, boring comments. Your attention to this matter is appreciated. Thank you in advance…

#40

Hello to everyone in your answers, I see you are wondering why the small-caliber weapons in Italians were so advanced. In fact, you should know before entering the war, Mussolini had made the decision to change the caliber rifles equipping his army, he had commissioned a study, as many things as this study left before the start of the war and so instead of having refined their armaments industry had expected the high command directives. Thus the Italian army units were left with obsolete weapons and often deffective (the number of times the gun jammed against the enemy no longer counted), not that they did not know how weapons of qualities, but like many Italian projects, they had been poorly planned (war Demara too early for many of this) and especially the country’s industrial coverage dated 20s.
Regards Fred.